House Navighast
Remaining Members Elijah Navighast, Lord of Navighast and First of His Name. Alphonse Navighast Ministers and Milieu Brajko Soyka, Commander of the Fist of Navighast Florence Stockton Winonna Stockton, Minister of War Other Major Factions and People Orchas Thanataran, Voice of the Forsaken, Patriarch of the Inheritance Basilica Ballrych Tarras History and Legends Reign of Barras Sharnika, Kinslayer and Lord Waywar The earliest Navighasti records depict the nation as a collective of barbaric warlords, tearing their way to ascendance by vice and violence. Barras Kinslayer arrived on the mainland over 800 years ago. Barras was a Caphizian lord who was banished from Caphis after being accused of breaking his sister’s neck and infecting his twin infant nephews while they slept by injecting them with the blood of a clearly deranged and tainted horse. Formerly Barras Sharnika, the brutal ex-lord found that the harsh and barren landscape matched the state of his heart. After a brutal usurping that ended in the complete annihilation of the house Waywar, he took their name as a sign of respect. It is said that, clutching a gaping chest wound and slumping up the stairs to the throne, he howled, “Finally! In all my days I thought I’d never find it: a swordsman that could leave me a proper scar.” From his roost in Waywar, now known as Lord Barras Waywar, he united the scattered and warring clans in the hitherto unnamed northern territory. He quickly became known as a versatile and powerful ally to have, doing whatever he must to expand his reign --- the use of diplomacy, the razing villages, the sundering of keeps, the callous perpetration of great massacres, but also and no less often, acts of generosity of profound magnitudes that often shocked the recipients.The ambivalent hate and adoration his people had for him made Barras' rule an uneasy one at its best, and he was slowly driven further into madness. There is a legend that, deep amidst the Earthtower mountains, a raiding party of his was attacked by a massive tainted bear. The bear rent the force apart, decapitating and stripping limbs from veteran berserkers like a lovestruck little girl pulling the petals from a flower. All of the warriors, save one, were slaughtered. When the survivor returned and told Barras what had happened, the king ordered his soldier to lead him to the beast’s den. Barras was confronted by the entire bulk of the thing, dwarfing near hills and crimson dripping from its colossal maw. Out of respect, and as punishment for cowardice, Barras slew the soldier who brought him there and fed him to the great bear, coaxing it from the cave. As the legend says, he then leapt onto the beast, wrestling it into submission, and leashed it, dragging it struggling over the mountains all the way to Waywar hall. There, it is said, Barras wed the bear, naming it Bakka. Likely half food-driven and half Stockholm syndrome, the love was not unrequited, and the two ruled the province together until the end of their days, fighting, and unfortunately, eventually dying together at the Battle of Cruxwa. Waywar and the Shao Zaharel The Waywar madness appeared hereditary, as every following heir who ruled the province did so in the same delirious fashion. Ioka, daughter of Barras, initiated a genocide against members of the other clans that once vied for ascendancy, crucifying the weak and enslaving the healthy. Her brother, Nullis, is said to have strung out a clergyman’s larynx, running a bow over it like some hideous violin, and played it into death as he set a church ablaze along with the entire congregation.The surviving sibling outlawed the faith and gave birth to three sons who, it is said, were all born at once and clawing at each other’s throats. The children grew to be the killers their fathers were and split the land among them, constantly fighting for supremacy. After many years of fighting, an ambitious Shao Zaharel invasionary force stormed the Waywar province and took several border towns over night. The Easternmost brother, Barras II, crushed the invading force, at one point even challenging a legendary Zaharen general who happened to be garrisoned in one of the taken battlements. It is said that the armies ceased their fighting mid-swing to gawk at the cataclysmic duel. Barras the II, armed with a pick-axe in one hand and a warhammer in the other, clad in naught but a mail skirt and boots, circled the enemy general like a jaguar looking to strike. The general was armed in full plate and a glaive, and so what he had in range, Barras had to make up with voracity. Barras would step in and make quick slams against the general in the attempt to slow him and break his armor, moving back once the general swung at the opening. After this tactic had worn away at the enemy's stamina long enough, the general made a desperate lunge, catching Barras in the left shoulder and sending a spray of crimson over the crowd. Barras swung down with his warhammer, snapping the glaive in twine, and rushed inward, swinging the pickaxe into his opponents side repeatedly, curling back the armor away until the flesh was exposed beneath, and dropping the warhammer to the side to grip his weapon with two hands, plunging the pickaxe into the exposed flesh with a wild overhand swing. As the soldiers commenced their fighting again, it is said that Barras used the pickaxe to open the breastplate, and devour the general’s heart. After hearing this news, the other two Waywar brothers (Lucan and Deagan the Boneless) ceased their blood feud, but only at their mother’s dying behest. The once divided household marched on the Shao Zaharel initiating a vicious butchery the likes of which the Zaharens had never before witnessed. City after razed city was set ablaze as the incursion lead by Barras II pushed its way further and further into the Zaharen mainland. To this day, the nation along the border remains barren of life, as the marauding warriors raped and flayed all the villagers they encountered and salted the fields, a plague of locusts consuming the nation from within. The scars, both geological and political, have never healed. In one of the cities closest to the borders, one of the Zaharen general’s daughters had been working to provide aid to disease refugees, as the Blinding Plague had lately swept the coastal cities, rumoured to have been brought about by the unfathomable Wyrmkin merchants. When Barras II found her, he raped and enslaved her, fastening her to a chain on his cart. Often he would parade her before the closed gates of a city he planned to attack, raping her in full view the inhabitants. In most cases, the unprepared and untrained militias would arm themselves in a seething rage and charge the marauding Wayawarans, only to be utterly slaughtered and leave their city defenseless. The Zaharen emperor, in a fit of sobbing fury, began a brutal police state and gave a conscription order that put a weapon in the hands of every able bodied man and woman, with only brief guerrilla and storm training. The onslaught was unstoppable, and wave after wave fell on the city, seemingly endless, until finally the invaders were cut from the countryside like infected bullet wounds. Spies had informed the Emperor that Barras and his daughter were held in the remains of Lao Deyorna. The arrival of the Zaharan army was heralded by great clouds, and the heavens drenched the earth. By the locks of her famously long silken hair, the Zaharen princess was strangled and hung on the gate. By the time Barras was found, he had ordered his men to add elongated spikes to their armor and adorn themselves with the grisly remains of those they’d slain. The effect was truly horrifying, and the horde of Zaharen warriors, despite greatly outnumbering their adversaries, were routed after the first assault. Trenches were dug around the city which were quickly filled with mud by the neverending rain. It is said that more Zaharans drowned than were slain by Barras’ forces.The Zaharens blocked trade and waged a war of attrition, until the forces within were damnably starved and diseased. Only then did the army make their decisive strike, taking the city overnight. The Wayaweran soldiers were laid in a mass grave and Barras was tortured for a week before being beheaded. The day he was killed is a national holiday in the lands of the Shao Zaharel. The Waywarans were pushed from the countryside and invaded. In the end reclaiming all and adding much to their lands, the Shao Zaharal were able to take Barras II's land, much of Deagan’s, and force Lucan to suicide. After vengeance had been carefully taken, the Zaharens returned to their homeland. Anarchy returned to the province. Warlords took sword against one another and the death toll was monstrous. A hellish blizzard seized the province in an icy grip bringing with it unholy diseases and a level of famine never before seen by the province. But amidst all the chaos and death, one simple farmer named Morgan Navighast rose from the ashes of the frozen heartland. Utilizing his natural charisma he was able to amass an army of citizens powerful enough to overthrow the reigning warlord of his region, a slaver known to favor the whip on himself as much as on his disobeying slaves. Unlike the previous rulers, Morgan was not consumed by arrogance after a single victory. He began to pour over long ignored diaries of generals dead and forgotten, and often spoke of them to others as though they were living friends of his. Using the resources gleaned from the usurped slavers, Morgan outfitted his raiders and began to organize them into armies headed by generals who had proven themselves brilliant tacticians as well as excelling in the art of individual warfare. Soon, he was able to take a mountain refuge and take on a more cautionary war of attrition, instigating the aggression of neighboring enemies like a nest of wasps, and kill them off squad by squad using ranged combat from the hills and ridges until the enemy was weak enough or scattered enough for decisive take-over of their capital. He quickly took the entire countryside, moving from mountain to mountain until he was able to take the ruin of Waywar itself and restore it to its previous luster and infamy. The Resulting Anarchy Morgan Navighast was a just ruler, and yet, despite his efforts, the nation continued to decline. The first few Masu-Illuma hives were spotted around this time, and in reflexive disgust, Morgan launched a crusade against the feral creatures, but quickly discovered that the only thing within the hives was myriad infection and death. The attempt was an utter disaster. Taint and disease spread, encompassing the countryside and leaving it a hideously mutated barren plain of ash. The people of the province grew cynical and godlessness rose to an all time high in direct measure with the famine that brought many to a miserable and early burial. In his later years, Morgan Navighast became overwhelmed by paranoia after surviving two assassination attempts, one in his private quarters by a tainted knife thrower, and the other a public crossbow shot from the roof of a building that left the Lord permanently crippled from the waist down. He created the Fist of Navighast, a motley crew of fabled Navighasti warriors sworn to defend their king and country who are often deployed on critical combat missions or work as a personal defense force for the noble family. More recently, the Navighast family have erected a small sick creche to help those infected and train apothecaries. This lead to the discovery of a cure to one of the deadliest of the rampant diseases, and they were able to mitigate themselves to some degree. Until this point, the Navighast family was looked upon with suspicion by those who remembered the ways of the previous rulers, but after they were able to successfully quell the rising tide of filth, they were hailed and accepted by the people, and in time, adored. In recent years, Lord Ulthor Navighast, the great grandson of Morgan, was taken by the plague just as the cure was beginning to take hold. Now, his son, Elijah, has taken the ascendancy and though the future is grim and uncertain, his initial actions have been looked up with favor by the people. Perhaps the Navighasti people may yet rise from the tragedy that has befallen them for so long. Modern Rule Since Elijah's rise to power, he has formed an alliance with the Oatharim in order to eradicate the Masu Illuma threat from both countries. While the military was receiving training south of the Navighasti border however, the Masu Illuma overran the capitol eradicating all but five of the remaining soldiers, who were either members of the Fist or were recently promoted into their ranks.